


Perception Filters

by mageofmind (renegadeartist)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Comics)
Genre: Dr Nyarlathotep, Nightmares, Nonbinary Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 16:18:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15513693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renegadeartist/pseuds/mageofmind
Summary: She lets out a huge breath and runs a hand through her hair. “Right. Right, sure. Sure.” She turns, as if to walk away, but she stops abruptly and spins on her heel. Again, she’s pointing at them, and there’s something bordering on excited in her eyes. “So you are wearing one of those perceptual filters!”





	Perception Filters

_ Their eyes say a city is burning while their ears pick up the anguished screams of the dying. The timelines around them twist, snap, and reform, a whirl of movement and potential that makes their stomach turn, but they’d be lying if they said they weren’t used to it by now.  _

_ The chaos jerks, grabs at them, and they’re thrown every which way, through timelines and worldlines, squeezed through dimensions and there’s no fire anymore but it still licks at them, scars their flesh and burns their insides, pain of personal histories being overwritten, erased, or mangled beyond recognition on the planes the fire can’t reach. The scar tissue piles up around the city until it’s impossible to understand what’s going on, much less stop it.  _

_ But they have to end this soon, because there’s too much bloodshed, too much chaos. The universe is straining under the weight of it all, and they’re nearly snapped in two, and if things continue like this nothing will survive and  _ –

They wake with a jerk and a gasp, the multicolored whorl of a temporal battlefield marring a cityscape still superimposed over their vision. The gentle hum of the console room does close to nothing to calm them down, and they push  _ out, out, out,  _ because there’s  _ too much  _ and they can’t be  _ trapped,  _ they  _ can’t.  _

Their ship hums, louder than before, and pushes back, layering around their form like a weighted blanket, quieting their senses and soothing their unsteady emotions. It works, a little, but not nearly as much as either of them would like. 

Their body still shakes, and there’s still the voice in the back of their head that’s urging them to  _ move, move, move,  _ because staying in one place too long is near enough to a death sentence, and though they’d like nothing more than to  _ rest  _ there’s too much for them to do, and they can’t leave the universe alone because it’ll just be torn apart, and–

They stand up, or the equivalent of it while they don’t have anything that could really be interpreted as legs. Their form still shakes and shudders. They feel themself bump against the upper dimensions of the TARDIS and they rest a limb against something analogous to a wall in an attempt to stop the tremors. It doesn’t quite work. 

They don’t have any companions at the moment, so there’s no reason to stuff themself into a three dimensional body. The part of their mind still occupied with thoughts of  _ war  _ and  _ fire  _ scratches against the confines of the console room and yell again to  _ move,  _ so they wander through the corridors and hope that they’ll be able to calm down soon. 

This is why they don’t sleep, they think angrily. Because half the energy gained from the rest goes to trying to rip themself out of the inevitable nightmares, and then to calming down afterwards. Sometimes, pretending to look human helps, giving them a mask that lets them lie to themself, for a while, that they’re fine.

(But this only works until it doesn’t, because the disguise inevitably chafes at them, chokes them, the rules of three dimensional bodies only getting in the way, a nuisance that they’d rather be free of.)    


They move through the confines of their beautiful ship as they’re meant to, a ghost to the lower dimensions. Through the walls they can feel the Vortex buffeting their ship, rocking her like an Earth vessel, and it helps, a little, to calm them down. 

For a while, there is blessed quiet, the only sound their ship humming, gentle vibrations around them and in their mind, and something approaching peacefulness settles over them, a state in which the pitch black emptiness in the corner of their mind where a civilization was burned out can’t reach them, where the War is kept away behind a hazy wall of purposeful repression. 

It’s shattered by a scream, and they feel themself freeze. There’s a human wandering the halls of their ship but that’s not right because they don’t have any–

Oh.  _ Oh.  _

Reality comes back with a snap, and  _ how could they have forgotten,  _ but they’d promised themself, pledged that they wouldn’t take any more companions and yet they have, because they’re a fool and they need someone to keep them from falling farther and faster, but possibly most importantly they had been  _ lonely.  _

And now Gabby is staring at them, eyes wide and a mug shattered on the ground, and they try to respindle as quickly as they can, reform into something that halfway looks human, but it’s  _ too late  _ because she’s  _ seen them,  _ or as much of them as a human could see. Oh,  _ no no no _ , they have to calm her down, she saw them  _ she saw them _ , she was never meant to see them, they’re never meant to see them, this can’t happen it can’t,  _ foolish foolish foolish _ –

They’re saying something, maybe. Words that are garbled and nonsensical, but they think they’re  _ words,  _ so at least that could be worse, and  _ projections  _ and  _ perception filters  _ and  _ TARDIS malfunctioning  _ are somewhere in their excuse, but it doesn’t look like she believes them. She  _ doesn’t _ believe them, it’s written all over her thought processes. 

She doesn’t believe them she doesn’t believe them– she’s backing away and shaking her head but she doesn’t turn and she doesn’t run and it doesn’t make  _ sense  _ that she’s not afraid, just confused. 

“What,” she says, cutting them off. Her voice is shaking. “Was that. And  _ don’t, _ ” she points at them accusingly, “Lie to me.” 

They flounder, trying to find an excuse suitable, one that she’d believe, a way of explaining it without actually explaining it, but all that chokes its way out is, “Nothing.” 

All of their words have dried up after their nightmares ran rampant through their mind, tossing out all the common sense and important memories and thoughts, and the only thing that’s driving them is a warped  _ panic.  _

She looks angry. Feels it, too. She takes a step forward and pokes them in their chest, the one that's wrapped in brown pinstripes and looks  _ too skinny for words  _ to human eyes. They rock back on their heels and land heavily back on the balls of their feet. “Didn't look like nothing. You–” she swallows and visibly scrambles for words. “You don’t look human. Really, I mean.” 

They can’t find any more words, so they settle for mutely shaking their head.

She lets out a huge breath and runs a hand through her hair. “Right. Right, sure. Sure.” She turns, as if to walk away, but she stops abruptly and spins on her heel. Again, she’s pointing at them, and there’s something bordering on  _ excited  _ in her eyes. “So you  _ are  _ wearing one of those perceptual filters!” 

They blink. “It’s–” words are easier to come by, now, and they don’t know why. “Not really. Not quite. It’s… different.”    
  
“Whatever!” she yells, finally bordering on hysteria. “Tell me tomorrow! I was just getting water, but I’m going back to bed.” 

She disappears around the corner, and the Doctor is left with unsteady thoughts and a shattered mug to clean up. 


End file.
